What is the "main" language in Switzerland?French or German?

Question

What is the "main" language in Switzerland?French or German?

Answer 1

German is the main language for more than 60%, followed by French 20%, Italian 5%, Romanche 1%. Did you know that Switzerland has a very large international population and that many expatriates do not learn/speak any of our language...

Answer 2

they have 3 official languages: french, italian and I think german ;-)

Answer 3

Cody_chae has the best answer... I know, I am Swiss :-)

What I can add is that the languages are spoken regionally. German is spoken in the north-east part of Switzerland, French in the west part and Italian in the south part.

When I was at school, I had to learn another official language of Switzerland and for me it was German.

What I would like to add however is that the German spoken in Switzerland is not "Hochdeutsch"... it's Swiss German which is quite different from pure German. And when you go to the German part of Switzerland they prefer to speak French and English rather than "Hochdeutsch" if you do not know their language (Swiss German).

Answer 4

Hi.  Like everyone else has already mentioned, they have 3 official languages, but most people speak English.  It's all quite regional.  Cities close to Germany like Zurich are German speaking.  Geneva, close to France is French speaking.  Hope this helps.

Answer 5

German (official) 63.7%, French (official) 20.4%, Italian (official) 6.5%, Serbo-Croatian 1.5%, Albanian 1.3%, Portuguese 1.2%, Spanish 1.1%, English 1%, Romansch 0.5%, other 2.8% (2000 census)

note: German, French, Italian, and Romansch are all national languages, but only the first three are official languages

Answer 6

Cody chae has reason about the languages spoken in Switzerland, I have been there and many people speak one one these languages, but as in many countries a lot of people (young) speak english, of course everything about tourism is in english. its not difficult to be there

Answer 7

I have found that German is spoken in many Euopean countries as a second langauge and is good to know if your traveling.  In Switzerland German is the primary language.